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All-Too-Common Gardening Mistakes

Landscaping, gardening, whatever you want to call it- it’s pretty forgiving. I’m of the school of thought that you can’t actually have flowers that clash with one another, and if you don’t have a perfect blend of textural variations in…

Plants for Small Spaces- Part 4

More plants for small spaces! This one here is Harbor Dwarf Heavenly Bamboo, or more accurately Nandina domestica ‘Harbor Dwarf’. It’s a compact, tidy little evergreen that, at most, will get 3 feet tall and wide- but that’s pretty big…

Proper Paver Patio Construction

Concrete pavers have come a long way in the last decade. Back then, they were essentially a compromise product: if the client wanted a patio and didn’t want a concrete slab, but couldn’t afford stone, pavers were almost as good.…

Retaining Walls Revisited

MJ (my wife) reads this blog, and she made a good point about my last post (“Retaining Walls- Always Needed?”). Her point was that this blog is for a general audience, and since I excerpted a conversation with another designer,…

Oyster Shell Paths

In working with a client on a recent project, I specified crushed oyster shells as the path material. It gives the paths the same look as Colonial Williamsburg, it reuses waste materials, and the light color of the shells reflect…

Cryptomeria Japonica ‘Yoshino’

There’s not a lot going on in the garden today, so I figured I’d snap a picture of my cryptomeria, aka Japaenese Cedar. It’s a fantastic tree: quick-growing, sturdy, and tolerant of a wide range of conditions. This one sits…